French GP: Massa tops practice 1

Felipe Massa of Brazil and his wife Anna Rafaela at Magny Cours

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was fastest by seven tenths of a second in opening practice session for the French Grand Prix.

The McLarens were second and third quickest, with Lewis Hamilton fractionally quicker than teammate Heikki Kovalainen, while Kimi Raikkonen completed the top four in the second Ferrari.

Massa expects a better race this weekend. He began by refuting media comment that the last two races had been bad for him. "Of course, in terms of points, we missed some we should have scored, but overall I do not see them as negative. In fact, for Monaco, the guys in the factory had done a fantastic job and we were also on the pace in Montreal. What was negative was the fact I had a bad start to the season, but now the championship is very close again and so I cannot consider the last races to have been that bad." As for this weekend, the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro man, who took pole and finished second in '07, is expecting to do well. "Magny-Cours has always been a good track for us and even if our opponents should be more competitive than before, I think we can fight for the win. It is difficult to choose between us and McLaren and BMW as we are all very similar in performance terms and we have all had races where we have not shown our true potential. If you look at the results, Ferrari has sometimes finished first and second in races this season, but we are only just in front of the others by three points."

Having found the good side of Monaco and Canada, the Brazilian did however admit to being glad to be in Magny-Cours. "Even if it is too early to say how we will compare to our rivals, I am glad to be back on this type of real race circuit, because usually you can have a more normal sort of race and if you start well up the grid you can expect to finish well. We can fight back here but we must remember there are still many races to go and the face of the championship can change in just one race.

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